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Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 2, No. 286. Monday, 4 Nov 1991.
 
 
Date: 		Sun, 3 Nov 1991 09:44:01 -0500
From: 		Tad Davis <davist@a1.relay.upenn.edu>
Subject: 2.0241 The Earl of Oxford vs William Shakespeare
Comment: 	Re: SHK 2.0241 The Earl of Oxford vs William Shakespeare
 
I agree that the authorship controversy is an awful waste of time.  But as
with most controversies, I find it hard to resist the temptation to throw
in my $0.02.
 
To wit: the Oxfordians claim as one of their strongest arguments that no
poor, uneducated country bumpkin could have acquired such inside knowledge
of court life.  Which always leads me to wonder: where did they get THEIR
inside knowledge of court life?  Could it be, perhaps, from reading about
it?  Or perhaps discussing it with members of the nobility? Unlike our poor
uneducated country bumpkin, who of course never had the opportunity to do
either, even though he lived in a crowded city filled with bookstalls and
court hangers-on.  One could, if one wanted to spend the time, make the
case that "the Stratford man" was perhaps closer, both physically and
chronologically, to the world he was trying to portray, and might actually
be in a better position to observe it and describe it than we are at this
far remove.
 
And to wit: the purpose of a coverup is to cover up.  The Oxfordians claim
as another of their strongest arguments the obvious unsuitability of the
"Stratford man."  If true, it could not possibly have been hidden from the
people who brushed shoulders with him.  Yet in all the many references to
Shakespeare as an actor -- which even the Oxfordians give him credit for
being -- no one bothered to record their astonishment: "You mean to say HE
wrote THAT??"  So either he was less obviously unsuitable (or in other
words, maybe he was more obviously capable of doing the work himself), or
it was an open secret.  In either case why bother?
 
	Tad Davis
	davist@a1.relay.upenn.edu

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